Posted in: Games, Nintendo, Video Games, YouTube | Tagged: HRL, nintendo, Nintendo Creators Program, youtube

Nintendo Creators Program Bans Members From Livestreaming Nintendo Games

Published Fri, 29 Sep 2017 11:45:14 -0500

If you're a streamer playing Nintendo games and posting on YouTube, you're probably already painfully aware of the Nintendo Creators Program. For those who don't know, the program is specifically for gamers who post let's plays of Nintendo games on YouTube. As a part of the program, gamers get a revenue kickback from Nintendo, instead of having to worry about takedowns or Nintendo claiming ownership of the content. It's a pretty sweet deal, in theory — except that Nintendo is starting to enforce some restrictions.

It appears Nintendo is not satisfied with just edited videos, as a new addition to their NCP guidelines now state that they will go after people who livestream Nintendo games on their channel. People have been using this as a way to get around the system for a few years, but now the company has updated their information to go after channels who just stream their playthroughs instead of posting them as videos. Below is a small snippet from the updated guidelines.

Live streaming on YouTube falls outside the scope of the Nintendo Creators Program. You cannot broadcast content on YouTube Live from the account you have registered to the Nintendo Creators Program. If you plan to broadcast content on YouTube Live, you have a couple of options. First, you can broadcast content on YouTube Live from a channel that is not registered to the Nintendo Creators Program. Or, you can cancel your channel's registration to the Nintendo Creators Program and instead, register your videos containing Nintendo's IP to the program separately. Videos which had previously been registered through your channel would need to be reregistered individually.

If you believe the rumor mill, some believe this is in response to the latest PewDiePie controversies. Which is fitting, since it was Felix who first lambasted Nintendo for the program back when it was launched in 2015 and announced he would no longer be playing Nintendo games because of it. It's a bit depressing that the company feels they need to go to these lengths, and ultimately are only further driving a wedge between content creators who give their games free promotion. But it's their product, and they can do with it as they wish. Only time will tell is this was a smart move on their part or a horrible decision. On the bright side, no such programs exist on Twitch… yet.

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